A Nice Saturday

Note: I wrote this post on Saturday, but was unable to access my blog account until this morning (Sunday).

Last night, before I went to bed, I peeked at the sports scores one more time before passing out and entering the land of not-so-eternal slumber (try the land of five-hour-slumber). Imagine my joy when I discovered that the Reds, Indians, Rockies and Tigers all won on the same night. Actually they’ve done it a few other times this season as well. A few years ago, all four teams winning on the same night was a near-impossibility. I can only come to one conclusion: the teams we (my dad, brother and I) are cheering are moving from awful to mediocre (Reds and Rockies) and from mediocre to pretty good (Indians and Tigers). Actually, les Tigres were not mediocre, but downright pathetic a few years ago–they’ve made quite the jump in their move to the top of the American League.

Beside the obvious mood-booster that is baseball in my life, my day today was further brightened when I found out that the mass of visitors (read: inspectors) from other, higher units, didn’t make it in because of the weather. Yay! I hate having people dropping in to see how we’re doing, when I know that really the are spying and dreaming up new ways to micromanage us. Of course, I wasn’t the only one today whose spirits magically lifted today upon the news of no guests. All the officers seemed to walk with an extra spring in their step. Now we’re all praying for further delays to their travels, so much so that our friendly visitors will bypass Ramadi entirely.

Because I was having such a lovely day today, even a minor detail like no running water for our showers couldn’t get me down (though it meant that I was stinky and sticky all day today after our morning pt). I also didn’t mind the series of smallish explosions that rattled me a bit. I suspect that either EOD was carrying out controlled explosions (which they are really bad about telling us to not worry when we hear something go kaboom!), or that some people were shooting grenades at the range. At least that’s my non-violent theory and I’m sticking to it!

Workwise, I had a pretty quiet day. People have begun trickling in for counseling sessions, mostly about workplace personality conflicts and relationship issues on the homefront (spouses cheating, lack of communication, etc.). I hope and pray that one of the guys I counseled this week will be able to salvage his marriage–if he can trust her again!

To cap off a pretty good day, this evening I had dinner with my fellow JOs (junior officers) and had a great time blowing off steam with them. Afterward, I came back down to my hut and chilled with some of the troops and chatting with my lovely bride on the internet. In fact, I was in such a good mood today that I ordered a care package for Melissa to help pamper her as she awaits the arrival of our baby (we started week 16 today).

Well, it is late and my eyes are starting to get really heavy. I’ve made it to another Sunday! I get to sleep in and leisurely make my way to church, lunch and then my own Sunday church service.

Life is good.

Cheers,
Peter